He took one step toward the door. And the singing stopped.

Chapter 7 from Echoes In The Dark

_____

The house had mirrors in nearly every room. Sierra had insisted. She claimed they made the place feel “airy and open,” but Jett had always thought they just deepened the emptiness.

Now, the mirrors seemed to be watching him.

He noticed it first in the hallway mirror — one of those tall, beveled antiques hung across from the guest bathroom.

It was late morning. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t showered. Just wandered the halls with a notebook in one hand and his voice recorder in the other, replaying fragments of songs and whispers like they might lead somewhere new.

He stopped in front of the mirror, as he had a thousand times, and caught sight of himself.

Only for a second, it flickered — but the reflection didn’t match.

Not exactly.

And then . . . well, whatever he had seen was gone.

He was standing still. But his reflection . . . had moved. Just a twitch. A tilt of the head. Too fast to name, too wrong to ignore.

He stepped back.

The image steadied. Matched him again.

Jett reached out, touched the glass.

It was cold. And solid.

But when he pulled his hand away, there was moisture on his fingertips.

Not fog. Not sweat.

Moisture. Water.

*     *     *

By afternoon, he had covered half the mirrors in the house with bedsheets. The staff didn’t comment. They moved around him with wary silence, as if he were made of smoke and grief.

In the library, he found a stack of old photo albums Sierra had packed away and never claimed. He flipped through them absently: wedding photos, band parties, a blurry shot of him onstage with his Strat lifted overhead like a weapon.

And then —

One photo he didn’t recognize. Didn’t remember.

A Polaroid, tucked into the back. Faded. Slightly curled.

It showed a man — him. Tall, narrow face, long hair, same denim jacket Jett always wore. A Snake Choir t-shirt. But it was his face as it was now with clothes from years ago.

He was standing in the hall upstairs, right hand resting on the banister, the other holding . . . a guitar pick?

Jett turned the photo over.

No writing. No date.

He stared at it for a long time.

He didn’t remember that moment. Didn’t remember anyone taking it. Didn’t remember being in that part of the house holding a pick in that hand.

He always held his pick in the right.

But in the photo — he held it in his left.

*     *     *

He called Avery.

“I need you to come over.”

“You sound winded,” she said.

“I’m not sick,” he said immediately, and heard the defensiveness in his own voice.

“I didn’t say you were. I’ll be there in twenty.”

When she arrived half an hour later, he was waiting on the patio, pacing like an old lion trapped in a cage of its own memory.

“I found something,” he said, approaching her. He handed her the photo.

She studied it. “When is this from?”

“I don’t know.”

She flipped it over. Blank.

“It’s you.”

“Is it?”

She looked again. “I . . . I think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

She didn’t answer.

Jett took the photo back, stared at it again. “That hallway — it’s the one by the linen closet. Look at the light. That’s morning light. I haven’t walked that hall in daylight in weeks. Hell, years.”

“Then it’s an old picture.”

“I’ve never posed like that. I never played left-handed. Look at the face — it’s me. But I’m wearing clothes from the eighties. The hair too.”

Avery sat, thinking. “Okay . . . Let’s say it’s . . . Let’s say someone’s walking around this house who looks like you. What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not imagining it.”

“Or it means your mind is filling in blanks with memories. Faces. Fears.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t get it. That humming — those footsteps — they’re me. I’m hearing myself, but from somewhere else. Like an echo that keeps moving forward.”

She thought this over. “It’s a photo of you, in your house.”

“Yes, but the face of me, now, and the clothes from another life.” He held out the picture. “And who has Polaroids anymore?”

Avery watched him for a long time. “Do you want to go see someone?”

“You mean a doctor? A shrink?”

“I mean someone who can help you figure out what’s real and what isn’t.”

He looked out over the valley, the haze curling in the distance.

“I used to know,” he started, then stopped. “I used to know what was real. I could tell the difference between a dream and a lyric. Between feedback and silence. Now . . .”

He trailed off.

Avery stood. “Jett, let’s get out of here. Just for the day. Take a drive. Go see the ocean. Or somewhere – anywhere – that’s not this house.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

He looked at her, not saying anything for a minute. Then his voice, quiet.

“Because . . . what if I leave . . . and . . . “

“And what?”

“And he takes my place?”

*     *     *

That night, Jett set up four cameras in the hallway outside his room. Two of them were motion-activated.

He told Kenneth not to touch them, not to even review the footage unless Jett said so.

He placed the photo on the table by his bed, face up.

He left the door open.

And then he waited.

At 2:16 a.m., the humming returned.

This time, it was closer. Clearer.

And it wasn’t just humming — it was singing.

“We were kings beneath the wire, drunk on noise and sweet desire . . .”

His lyrics. His voice.

He stood slowly, heart pounding.

He opened the door, slowly, quietly. The hallway light was off. His shadow from behind him, from his bedroom light, stretched long across the floor.

He picked up the voice recorder. Pressed Record.

He took one step toward the door.

And the singing stopped.

But something moved in the mirror at the end of the hall.

Not his reflection. Not a trick of light.

It turned . . . and looked toward him.

And it smiled.

_____

© Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net